Daniel Caldwell was born Wednesday morning (7/2/08) at 1:05 am weighing in at 8 pounds 11.6 ounces and 21 inches long. He is a very sweet little guy who prefers sleeping over eating right now and loves to be snuggled up next to Daddy.

I woke up around 5 Tuesday morning with contractions 7-8 minutes apart. By 7:30 they were 5 minutes apart so we called Thomas's dad to come pick him up and made calls to our friend who was ready to take Gloria. We loaded up in the car at 8:30 and set out to drop off Gloria. The contractions pretty much stopped. We still dropped her off but went to the mall to walk a while in an effort to jumpstart labor again. We walked for about an hour and my uterus managed about 4 measley contractions so I decided we were just wearing me out and we went to pick up Gloria and go home to rest and wait.
The rest of the day was spent resting and hoping labor would really get going. I told Michael to go to work for the afternoon, but he chose to stay with me and take care of Gloria so that I could relax a bit. Contractions continued throughout the day and evening about 15 minutes apart. After Chinese delivery dinner, I found a website with a live contraction timer and discovered that my contractions were lasting right around 1 minute and were still averaging 15 minutes apart. They were definitely more intense by now. I had a good bit of pressure in my lower back and some crazy weird pain and discomfort around the lower part of my belly. It felt like I needed to pee or something even after I emptied my bladder.
After Gloria went to bed, we ate ice cream and watched Dolores Claiborne (of all movies!) while I laid on the floor on my side in a pile of pillows arranged just so. By the end of the movie, I decided to go sit in the tub to relax in preparation for bed. Michael decided to come time the contractions again and they suddenly jumped to incredibly intense and 5 minutes apart.
So, at midnight we loaded Gloria up and set out to the hospital. On the way, a cop pulled us over for doing 60 in a 40. He must have known what was going on because instead of parking behind us, he chose to pull up to the side, listened to Michael explain that I was in labor, and then chastized him, "I understand, but she'll be in labor for another 6-7 hours before she has that baby. You've got plenty of time so slow it down." (Little did HE know!)
We pulled into our church parking lot (right up the hill from the hospital) at 12:30 and handed Gloria to my friend who was waiting there for us. Gloria hugged her immediately and I told Michael it was time to GO.
We are on record as being admitted to the hospital at 12:36. Our nurse got us in, got me changed, put monitors on us (I told her I was NOT hanging out in the bed with the monitors!!!) and checked me to see how far along I was. "You're complete." What? Huh? I am? "At station 2." (4 is out!) "You can push whenever you're ready."
Yeehaw! I got into the same birthing position that worked for Gloria (sitting up frog legged with my legs resting on the lowered bottom part of the birthing chair/table) and started pushing with each contraction. The dr came in and broke my water (at my request) during one of the contractions and then stood off to the side until Daniel was crowning. (I think it was only a couple of pushes later.) Michael was up next to me on my left side holding me, watching Daniel, encouraging me, and joking with the nurses. When I felt Daniel crowning, I really tried hard to hold back a little to help stretch slowly and prevent tearing. It seems like I managed to push twice for his head (even thouh I REALLY wanted to do one ginourmous push to get that head out) and then once more for his body to slither out afterwards. I have no idea how, but I swear I saw him slide right out of me!
The dr was awesome! He announced when the cord had stopped pulsing, clamped it, and had Michael cut it. He waited PATIENTLY for the placenta to come and then showed us all the different parts of it, including the membrane sac. It was really neat. Even though he's an older dr, he still seemed all fascinated by it. It was probably nice to have some patients interested in it all, too. Then he told the nurses, "No pit for this one" even though neither of us had said it. He just KNEW. Oh, and he was the dr who just happened to be on call and there in the building!
I got to hold him a long time before they went to weigh, evaluate, bathe him. (a whole 10 feet from me) Then I got 2 little stitches in my small 1st degree tear-still a tear, but the smallest one yet! He nursed twice in the LDR room for a good long bit both times before it was time to wheel us up to our room. (Yeah, they took us up in a wheel chair. Hey, I'm not above a little pampering after an unmedicated birth. I still liked having a little something for those BURNING after pains!) He is very snuggly and makes those sweet little newborn noises. We are just thrilled with him.